Django - Set and use site-wide variables for use in templates

Question

I'm looking for a way to set a number of site-wide (or app-wide) variables, such as website (or app) title for instance, that I would use in my templates (in my header for instance). I have something like WordPress' bloginfo() in mind.

Ideally I'd like to be able to define any type of attribute at the level of a site or an app. For a given app, for instance, I'd have :

app

--attribute1 (e.g. title)

--attribute2 (e.g. contact email)

--Model1

----AttributeX

----AttributeY

----...

Meaning that "attribute1" would be unique to my app. I would then need a way to use the value of attribute1 in my templates. I hope my question is clear.

Answer 1

I use site-wide (or app-wide) variables all the time using context processors.

Inside your app create a separate file called context_processors.py (needless to say that isn't mandatory to name it like that, it is just for convention) and this file must define at least one function which accepts a request parameter and returns a dictionary.

Something like that:

# yourapp/context_processors.py
# you can either use <from django.conf import settings> to make use of setting varibales

def static_vars(request):
    return {
        'var1': 'Hello',
        'var2': 'World',
    }

Now before you access the variables in your templates as {{ var1 }}, you must pass this function to the TEMPLATES settings like this:

# settings.py

TEMPLATES = [
{
    'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
    'DIRS': [
        # dirs here
    ],
    'OPTIONS': {
        'context_processors': [
            # some other context processors here and ...
            'yourapp.context_processors.static_vars',
        ],
        'loaders': [
            # loaders here
        ],
    },
},

]

Now, you can use the variables static_vars expose in every template.